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Alan: Government is good at incrementalism; poor-to-lousy at epochal change.
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Primary source: Read the 2008 Fed transcripts for yourself here.
As crisis loomed, Yellen made wry and forceful calls for action. "What the transcripts show is a woman who was constantly pushing her peers -- and also cleverly cajoling them -- to do more to help ordinary households, not just financial institutions. At the same time, she urged her colleagues to look at the flaws in the banks that caused the crisis in the first place. "I don't believe in gradualism in circumstances like these," Ms. Yellen said in March 2008, months before the situation came to a boil. In the end, during the most terrifying moments, Ms. Yellen helped persuade even the staunchest opponents of more aggressive actions to go along with the policies that the head of the Fed, Ben S. Bernanke, wanted." Nathaniel Popper in The New York Times.